NEWSPAPERS WILL PAY DAMAGES ON 'ORAL CONTRACT'

By
The Associated Press /
September 7, 1989

MINNEAPOLIS

A promise of confidentiality to news sources is an oral contract, a state appeals court said Tuesday in upholding $200,000 of a $700,000 damage award against Minnesota's two largest newspapers, the Minneapolis Star Tribune and the St. Paul Pioneer Press Dispatch. But the three-judge panel rejected a public relations man's claim of misrepresentation by the newspapers.